DISQUS

Not sure I understand what the problem is. Lala actually sells DRM-free mp3s cheaper than just about anyone except Emusic. You have a choice.

James, for people with employer-sponsored insurance plans, disclosure of medical conditions is rarely required, either to your employer or to the insurer. And the incentives for secrecy are high (e.g., discrimination by your employer for expensive treatment, the fear that your insurer will share such information with your employer). For people buying their own coverage, and for the purchase of life insurance, the disclosure requirement is more common. Regardless, in certain situations (especially with genetic defects where expensive treatment will eventually become necessary), the incentives are a bit warped. Obviously, you want to know if you are predisposed to a condition or, if already suffering, you want to gain as much knowledge as possible about your condition. But sharing such information about yourself could put you in a fairly unhappy position: you become both unemployable and uninsurable. Without state-sponsored insurance or care, losers of the genetic lottery are in an awful bind.

Robert, you're conflating privacy with secrecy, and a lack of privacy with openness. Privacy is really about autonomy, the ability to share information about yourself with others, the ability to choose who may access that information, and who may not. For example, you could choose to tell everyone on earth your medical condition (and I think you have). But a life insurance company would still require written authorization before your doctor shared your medical records with them (although a similar authorization is not needed if you share those records yourself).

In this Web 2.0 world, one of the biggest concerns sick people have is whether they will be able to take advantage of social networks in order to gain and share information about themselves and their disease (which is, as you say, of great benefit), without losing the control they have over that information when it comes to disclosing it to a health insurance company or an employer. Current privacy laws, including HIPAA, don't offer much protection to people who use the internet to research or commiserate. Indeed, Web sites don't have many (any?) privacy obligations at all. That is to say, you may well decide to share your information among only a small group of fellow-sufferers using a private Web site, but there's no legal framework that punishes the site if they allow that information to escape, and there's no requirement that they even disclose a breach. That fundamental lack of protection, which many people accept as a fact of life and law, still affects our autonomy, and therefore our privacy.

I agree with you that privacy is affected by our own decision to share or not to share. But that is a definitional quality of privacy, not the lack of privacy. Real privacy is making a decision to share with your doctor, or with a support group, or with a private discussion group, while ensuring your information does not escape the small perimeter you've defined. Difficult to impossible, you say? Maybe, but for many people who aren't Robert Scoble, such contours and control would be quite possible within the right legal framework.

Again, I'm not saying that's ideal (many would argue that complete transparency is the ideal). But that is privacy. And I do think Healthcare on the Web would explode if there were more protections for people who use the Web for their care.

Yeah, Plurk is the one I wish everyone used. But the poor adoption rate (and Twitter's renewed dominance) is killing it. For me, too. I use Twitter and Facebook. That's it.

I'm amazed anyone (outside of trad. newspapers) is drawing a paycheck for writing about tech stuff. Sure there are the larger blogs (Mashable, TechCrunch) and the self-run outfits (e.g., Louis Gray). But it seems like the tech-o chamber needs to shrink a bit or people need to find a niche. There's a lot of repetition and overlap out there.

The glut of general audience tech writers is expected, of course. There are no barriers to entry, and information isn't hard to come by. That's exactly why I'd expect to see increased consolidation and a free-fall in wages to nearly zero.

A hobbyist like me doesn't much care. But the pros are going to face increasingly tough times.

Mark,

For once I (partially) agree with one of your "sky is falling" posts. But even if Google is wrong here, and Knol is a bad business decision, that doesn't mean it's "EVIL."

It's just a bad business decision. That's it. If you're right, the market will punish them for it, and they'll be forced to adapt (see, e.g., Facebook's Beacon).

Also, I'm not sure what's so evil in the first place. What are you criticizing? The idea of Knol? Or Google's apparent enhancement of those pages' position (which could still be a function of "freshness").

I think the idea is actually pretty good. But as with Google's other services, there needs to be a pretty clear firewall established between Google the search engine and Google the content host.

Dude, where's Jango.com?

The judge has not "destroyed privacy". He's entered an order that's likely to be overturned or severely limited on appeal.

Is he wrong? Yes. Is he catastrophically wrong? Nah. What really happens will be decided on appeal.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

This guy gets it.

I'm impressed too. The Spring Cleaning feature alone is worth it. Just unsubscribed from all my dead GR feeds much faster than I could have done it in Google Reader. And all that cleaning is synced with GR. NICE.

Again, if you're right, the market will bear that out. Video producers should be fairly sophisticated in their exploitation.

But most of them, I imagine would use multiple platforms and evaluate the revenue potential of each. It's easy to get bogged down in percentages. But consider the video producer who builds his own platform or leverages the more generous terms of a smaller start up, giving him, say, $10x at 80 to 100% of revenues.

What if he could get $50x at 55% of revenues from YouTube? A rational producer will pick the deal that maximizes his return. He won't get pissed about percentages.

The market determines whether the deal is a good one (not you). If they decide the terms are poor, or that YouTube doesn't provide a meaningful service, they'll move on.

Right now, the market disagrees with you. Maybe ads aren't working, but people continue to use YouTube as their first-choice platform. And they WERE doing it for free. If people can use YouTube's huge audience to effectively monetize their content, I imagine they'll have lots to thank YouTube for.

Normal people are using the site. A lot. Just like normal people are still using Myspace. A lot.

Normal people use Facebook just like Twitter. They don't care about Twitter.

Normal people do not read this blog.

This is not a bug at all. It's the same thing you can do ANYTIME you link to someone else's content.

Just to be clear, Google Reader will not alter the source's content; you're only editing what YOU put in YOUR link blog.

It's not any different than linking to and quoting content on your blog. Which we do all the time. The question with Google Reader's new feature is the same question you always have to ask yourself:

Do you trust the source? The person who's running the link blog? Do you trust THAT PERSON?

Well, do ya punk?

Bless you, Steve.

It's this disconnect between the technorati and normal people that seems to lead to perception gaps. You point out one of them (i.e., people who have heard of Twitter vs. those who could care less).

I will point out another. I have many non-techie friends who actually LIKE Twitter and use it regularly. Neither myself nor any of my Twitter-loving pals noticed any downtime. Why? Probably because they access Twitter using Gmail. But I use Twhirl, and I didn't notice any problems either. Perhaps all these people who follow 20,000 other users aren't getting decent performance because they've rendered the service useless.

I don't know, but there's definitely a disconnect between the small army of chicken little bloggers and the larger contingent of silent, happy users.

This site isn't a threat to Digg, because it's built for the masses. And, as you hint, it's actually perfect for the masses.

It's focused on traditional news, entertainment, and sports. It won't be dominated by linux dorks or Paul-tards. It can't be gamed by a small horde of myopic dweebs.

It's actually attractive. You can get a lot of information without working too hard or trying to figure out the design. The integrated photo interface up top does what Google News (Image View) attempts to do with an entirely separate and inferior interface.

In fact, Google News is real comparison point. You're assuming (because of the Buzz Up feature) that Yahoo's target is Digg or Techmeme, but they're really attempting to crack a nut that lots of people are trying to solve right now: how can you build an interactive semi-social news site that normal people will actually use?

As Mixx.com is finding out, you can't reach a general audience by building a better Digg. Normal people don't understand Digg.

But they'll *get* Yahoo's Buzz.

Is it just me or does Newspond not have RSS feeds? Show me the way, cuz I'm not seeing it.

Nope. I've gotten 2 per week the last two weeks, and they appear to be singular mistakes addressed to one of my imported pop accounts.

Nowhere in this post does it mention why E-Trade is a sinking ship. Care to enlighten us?

They don't have a case. There's little chance of consumer confusion between the two services, and OpenSN hasn't even attempted to trademark the name of their service. Finally, aside from "open" there's no similarity between the names. The funny thing is that they had first crack at coming up with a name for their service, and they ended up with the more inscrutable moniker.

They do have a knack for getting publicity. And they may even obtain a settlement. But they don't have a case.

dood. i can't hat tip in del.icio.us! all praise the beard!

First, I think Adam's right here, Mark. I followed these instructions last night in writing my own piece, and what I get is a real blog roll. Perhaps you are choosing the "add a clip to your site," which is right next to the "add a blogroll to your site" button. Check it again.

Second, I direct both of you something I noticed last night, which is that Lacey appears to be an enthusiastic Bloglines user. You can see that on his site, too. I thought that was kind of odd, but understandable for reasons I make clear.

320 or 160: i cannot tell the difference. my dumb ears are fine with whatever compression is available north of 128.

i paid $4. money well spent.

Awesome. And I have to agree with Miss Universe. This was a cool idea. I also must admit I wasn't kidding on most of my posts; there is definitely some room for improvement on Mashable! But I think Mark "Ridiculous Nickname" Hopkins is headed in the right direction with his posts. Balancing those "100 New ____ for _____" posts with some longer analytical pieces that stimulate some discussion will attract even more commenters than troll week.

Now, where do I claim my prize?

Mashable: Your exclusive source for news about Mashable's sad attempt to increase the numbers of its commentariat.